


Addiction comes in many forms

by sittingsippingtea



Category: Sherlock (BBC)
Genre: Addiction, Eating Disorder, Gen, M/M, Other, aspiring johnlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sittingsippingtea/pseuds/sittingsippingtea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock was really desperate for a flatmate.  TW Eating disorders, addiction, drug references</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Getting home

**Author's Note:**

> Sherlock's POV. Alternates past and present. Also, this is my first post here and I hope you enjoy it!

 

It started out alright. People told me I looked beautiful. I figured out how to interact with them and politely disagree. I stopped eating after 7 pm during cases. That wasn't anorexia it was common sense. That's what I told myself anyway. I was hoping I could turn of the stupid part of me that was so demanding. I was in control. I said so, rocking back and forth folded with my knees at my chest in the empty kitchen. Cases gave me control. I knew what to do. People said I started to act strange around them. I wrote it off as my status as a sociopath.

...

So now I'm here. In the morgue. Just me and the dead. It's going to be okay. I'm not envious of them. I'm just... a detective. Thinking about life is part of the job. I set up the microscope and put in a slide. I want to see the nucleus in the cell. Molly will probably say that's a defense mechanism because I'm afraid of my metaphorical nucleus. It's not fear. Distaste, if anything. I want to stop thinking about it all the time.

...

I began to doubt the diagnosis of sociopath/psychopathy. Anyone my charming brother sent would be biased, and only too ready to suggest 'safer living situations.' Living alone was good. It could be as quiet as I wanted. I saw their points about the impulsivity sociopaths and psychopaths tend to display perhaps not being to conducive to a 'healthy environment'. I think about myself all the time. Egocentricism is a symptom after all. I hate it. I hate that I don't feel strongly about it, if I'm to fit the diagnosis. Which I will. I certainly don't fit my own standards for certain things.

...

Molly came in and tried to make me drink some vile fructose beverage of vegetative origin. I think I distracted her. The liquid will poison me. I'll drown if I drink that. It's been what two, three days? Starvation takes at least a month to cause death. I'm fine. This will help me concentrate. Look away from the bottle, idiot. “Just coffee thanks,” I say. I can do coffee. It won't reach into my veins and coat them with sugar. I acknowledge that is impossible, but it is a sensation. My reaction seems to have caught her attention.

...

I didn't lose my sense of hunger. I found ways to override it. Oh yes, irresponsibility and criminality because staying alive gets boring. The needles at least felt like something. And I was in charge of that something.

...

It's been at least a week since the juice incident. I won't be tempted again. I massage my scalp. Even with the conditioners my hair has turned brittle again. The human head sheds approximately 150 hairs each day. This isn't right. I need a distraction. Worrying won't do any good for me now. My vision blurs. The room around me is getting darker and shrinking. That is to day, I seem to be losing consciousness.

...

I seem to be conscious again. Eyes appear fully functional. I'm in a hospital bed. The heart rate monitor beeps. My ears are fine too. Mycroft is outside talking. I must have been in mortal peril if the British government got me here. There's an IV in my left arm of saline solution. There's another one that appears to be delivering a glucose solution. Dehydrated and low blood sugar then. That's all. I'm about to go about getting my things and a cab when Mycroft walks in, wrapped umbrella in hand.

“You can't keep doing this you know. It can take a while for us to review the footage to the point of interfering if need be”

“I know what happened.” I say with some indignation.

“I don't doubt that, brother dear.”

“Let me go home.”

“Check your right arm.”

I look. Needles have been there and not to administer glucose. A relapse then.

“Sherlock, this has got to stop. You're causing Mummy great distress.”

“What are your terms?”

“You aren't going to be living alone anymore and you will be eating. I'm sure you understand. I'll send a car to bring you to 1 Nightingale place this evening.”

“I'm not going there.”

“Then get a flatmate.”

“Who'd want me as a flatmate?”

...

John's been living here a week. I've been fine, for lack of a better word. His company isn't annoying as that of most people. I suppose I should talk to him about all of this before he gets attached. 


	2. Honey, I'm home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft did the whole kidnap John to tell him about Sherlock routine. Sherlock's POV. (In this universe SIP is happening but at a slower pace).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mainly just Sherlock thinking. Bold text is John speaking.

John’s walking up the stairs. He forgot his limp for the first few steps. He’s stopped. Why? Needs a moment to compose himself. Not a problem. Back to thinking. Oh. He’s talking. It sounds lovely. People don’t usually sound like that when they talk to me. Stop, respond to him. Converse. You don’t want him to worry. He looks...shaken. I didn’t see his hand shake when I opened my eyes to watch him shut the door.

“What's wrong?”

 **“I just met a friend of your** s.”

“A friend?”

**“An enemy.”**

“Oh! Which one?"

 **“Your archenemy, according to him. Do people have archenemies?** ”

“Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

**“Yes.”**

“Did you take it?”

**“No.”**

“Pity, we could have split the fee. Think it through next time.”

**“Who is he? He was trying to tell me about you.”**

Mycroft. Damn him. I’m doing as he asked. He won’t find anything if they do a drugs bust. I’m clean enough, have been for a month at least. Maybe he wanted to make John aware of my ah... calorie restriction. So John will watch me too. Will he leave me? I know I would. He’s going to ask when I started. Doctors always do. Then he’ll tell me about why people need to eat. Do I qualify as a person? I’m generally told I’m a machine. Robotic. Cold. Why is efficiency a flaw? I don’t need to eat. (I’m hungry.) I don’t deserve it. (My mitochondria don’t have enough glucose to process). I’ll have water in half an hour. Tea counts as water, right? As long as I don’t add anything. (Two sugars and milk would be heavenly). Wait, stop. John’s going to talk about it. He’s inhaling. Maybe he feels guilty?

**“I didn’t let him”**

Oh. He doesn’t know. Well he knows about the hypothetical drugs around the flat. But to his knowledge they’re not in right now. They’re not in me right now. Nothing to dull the boredom. People who know of me often assume I take stimulants, to allow me to think faster, be better. It’s not that I haven’t taken them, it’s that... I crave the escape, slowing down. Not the euphoric speed. I need to slow down. To a normal speed. So I can feel human. Oh. I see. Mycroft wanted to tell John not to let me get any perscription depressants. John wouldn’t give me any, unless he thought I would just be take what the dealers have on hand. He’s a doctor. He knows the side effects of taking oxycotin cut with another substance. That would violate primum non nocere- do no harm-, in his mind. If he knew I’d use either way, he’d rather keep someone safe. “I’d rather not talk about you without your presence. Slightly less of an invasion of privacy.” That’s rediculous. Aversion to invasion of privacy. Sentiment, making things inefficient. My job is invading people’s privacy. Why would he care if people did the same to me?

“How very moral of you."

 


	3. Remembering dismembering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short continuation of the conversation begun in Chapter 2. Formatting is not going to be effective, for which I apologize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am experimenting with third person narration.

“Yeah, well. Doctor’s ethics. Hippocratic oath and all.”

This makes little sense. Even in following it, there’s still room to get information about patients. Sherlock wondered if John viewed him as a patient, a delicate victim.

“The hippocratic oath is outdated and I seriously doubt you took it as you don’t appear to have such qualms about surgery as a whole.”

“ True. Swearing to Apollo was taken out of the curriculum by the time I applied.”

John sighs, perhaps remembering medical school and dismembering his cadaver. He had to steady his hands, which were shaking after too many calming cups of tea. Each student gets one, it wouldn’t do to make a mistake.

“Were you made uncomfortable by your gross anatomy course on the first day?”

John is used to such questions that initially appear to be non-sequiturs. John pauses, now almost certainly recalling.

“It was a bit weird. The professor kept reminding us not to form emotional attachments with them” John said.

“The inefficiency of sentiment is truly amazing. I am concerned for our healthcare system if physicians are so slowed by it” Sherlock responded. He was distracted, when Lestrade entered the room behind Mrs. Hudson


End file.
